People are changing their profile pictures to Clippy
R.I.P. AOL's dial-up internet service.
Today’s issue of PHONE TIME includes: the Clippy profile picture movement, Reddit will limit the Wayback Machine’s access, and an app that’s “like Co-Star but for spirituality.”
If you’ve been hanging out in YouTube comments sections lately, you might have noticed the pesky anthropomorphic paperclip known as “Clippy” in abundance.
Last Thursday, YouTuber and right to repair advocate Louis Rossmann uploaded a video titled “Change your profile picture to clippy. I'm serious.” He encourages viewers to do just that, as a protest against unethical behavior from tech companies including censorship, planned obsolescence, and using your data to train generative AI.
“Clippy is a symbol that what used to be considered one of the worst annoyances of our life would now not only be welcomed, but for all of his flaws, celebrated as an idol,” Rossmann said in the video, which has amassed over two million views.
As you might expect, people have gotten creative, putting their own spin on the most infamous of Office Assistant characters, even making their own hand-drawn or clay versions.
“I think it is cool that people are getting creative with their clippys, it's not just that everyone has a copy of the same image, it's an icon that you can modify to your liking whilst still remaining recognizable,” one user commented.
Meme break
Some updates on the status of the “My weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago” Wikipedia article:
Also, PHONE TIME is officially a real media organization.
As I wrote last week, the “evaluation of sources” part of the article’s deletion discussion is fascinating to me. The Wikipedia guidelines for self-published sources mention Substack newsletters as an example, in contrast to traditionally published newspapers and magazines. The guidelines note that self-published works can sometimes be acceptable sources. I would guess that these guidelines will be even more debated as more journalists and writers go independent.
Elsewhere online
Reddit is going to limit the Wayback Machine’s access, allowing it to index only the Reddit.com homepage, saying there are instances where AI companies have scraped its data. — Jay Peters, The Verge
“AOL shutting down its [dial-up internet] service arrives as other relics of the internet’s earlier days continue to disappear,” Wyatte Grantham-Philips writes in The Associated Press. R.I.P. Skype, Internet Explorer, and Instant Messenger.
I.am.Gia collaborated on a T-shirt collection with the Instagram meme account Not Thirst Traps, which is run by Polina, the brand’s lead copywriter. — Julia Teti, WWD
A snapshot of the @notthirsttraps grid. One review described the app ”Find Your Faith” as “Co-Star but for spirituality.” The app, by Wind Down Studio, asks you questions about your spiritual background as well as your current beliefs and values. It then gives you a “path” based on your answers, although it is behind a paywall. I’ve written about the plethora of Duolingo-like apps that break down everything from cooking to therapy into bite-sized steps, and I think we’re going to see a lot more that use AI for personalization.
